Recently, a number of our readers noted that the price for Borderlands 2 and XCOM: Enemy Unknown had been raised on Green Man Gaming, with a specific new ANZ price that was a good $20 higher than it used to be. Green Man have now addressed the issue in a short post on their blog, blaming the price rise on 2K Games.

“We have had a number of enquiries about price increases on Borderlands 2 and XCOM Enemy Unknown in Australia and New Zealand.”

“This was done at the request of the publisher based on local retailer feedback. We would rather not have had to do this but we really value the relationship with our publishing partner.”

The current price for the game means that it is actually cheaper at the moment to head down to a “local retailer” and purchase a boxed copy than to have a digital one delivered over the internet, which is indefensibly stupid. That said, Borderlands 2 is currently on sale for 50% off on GMG for the next 24 hours, which means you only pay $35 instead of the new $72.

Since we announced our partnership with Green Man Gaming earlier in the month with the intention of delivering best prices for Australian gamers, we must express our disappointment at 2K’s decision to enforce an unfair regional pricing model that gouges Australians for no reason — a regional pricing model that is currently under investigation by the Australian Government.

We’ve asked 2K Games for comment on the matter and will let you know if we hear anything back.

2K Games boss Christoph Hartmann has told GamesIndustry International that he believes video games must achieve photorealistic graphics in order to open up new genres. At the moment, he says, developers return to the action and shooter genre as a safe bet because portraying emotion is difficult.

“Recreating a Mission Impossible experience in gaming is easy; recreating emotions in Brokeback Mountain is going to be tough, or at least very sensitive in this country… it will be very hard to create very deep emotions like sadness or love, things that drive the movies. Until games are photorealistic, it’ll be very hard to open up to new genres. We can really only focus on action and shooter titles; those are suitable for consoles now.”

Source: GamesIndustry International